HOW STRONG PEOPLE PREVAIL OVER TOUGH TIMES

Strong people come from every corner of the globe.

Based on what I call research, wandering around to flatten my learning curve, I met a bunch of strong folks between Philadelphia and Eugene, New York, and Portland.

My interpretation of what strong means comes from where I was raised. It’s probably not much different than any other small town, except I claim North Bend as mine.

Believe it or not, when you come from a small town and move to a big city, you meet some of the same people.

How is that? Because every huge metropolitan area began the same way, small.

Like Lincoln City is an aggregation of smaller towns, Queens, NY used to be the same deal, small towns gathered under one name. What’s that mean? Nothing, except that big cities are populated by small town yokels like me and mine.

Instead of looking at the massive populations, look for the similarities in individuals, and you find common ground.

For example, my wife is a Los Angles woman who likes to think that she would have been a good North Bend Bulldog, though I think she’s more of a Marshfield Pirate. And I can life with that.

She’s a strong one.

Small Town People Compete Harder

If you grew up small town, and live near another one, then you know about competition.

My kids raised in Tigard always had Tualatin to vent on. They won a few, lost a few, but the location was key: the city limits are one step away from each other. It wasn’t the same with Beaverton, or Portland, or Lake Oswego.

A small town, so called bedroom community next to an urban center, is different than a stand alone small town. In those towns you find people who never go downtown, and those who use any excuse to hit the pavement.

It’s an interesting mix, like people who live around NYC, who can’t imagine living any further away from the center of the universe, but never go to Manhattan.

Strong people live their lives based on their convictions and experience, some good, some not so good. The stronger ones in the group know how to change.

Listening To Strong People Takes Flexibility

If a younger person takes it upon themselves to explain current events, from Covid, to Black Lives Matter, to health care equality, be a good listener. They hear a different message than boomers and the greatest generation.

What’s different?

Decisions made today will affect their future, the one where they age up and older people age out. They want their world to be better than the one they see before them, better for their kids like we’ve wanted better for ours.

How is that working? Like always, America is and always has been, a work in progress.

We small town people have a deep well of animosity, often misguided and mistaken, that we need to refocus. The bad guys don’t live in the next town over, in the next state over, which here in Oregon is Idaho, Washington, and California.

Instead of a location for bad guys, look at the location of a bad idea, poor decisions, and pathetic behavior. Changing that location is where the hard work starts.

The easy out is repeating the words coming from unreliable mouths, like “The virus will just disappear,” and, “Wearing a mask infringes on my freedom,” and, “Please cancel Obamacare, I’ll still have ACA health insurance.”

What we hear isn’t always easy, but as adults we’re experienced with things that aren’t easy. We’ve been doing it for awhile, doing things we don’t want to do, but still need doing. So, we do it.

This is a chance to shine in a darkening time. Why not make the effort?

Start with wearing a mask.